by Carl Schramm
Put yourself in the shoes of an entrepreneur who finds himself at a crossroads. You have worked hard to build one new platform and you think it's time to bring it to market. But the venture capitalist (VC) who sits on your board says the product requires at least another three months to develop and will recommend an additional investment only if you define a clear strategy access to the market and you will present a detailed plan to implement it. Do you have to follow his advice? In absence of data empirical on the results achieved by small entrepreneurial companies comparable to yours, it is impossible to know which course of action would be most suitable for your start-up.
Joshua Gans argues that the absence of a strategic blueprint to evaluate options leads to uninformed strategic choices. I see it differently and now I'll explain why.
The entrepreneurship industry
Until the 1980s, no one ever really taught entrepreneurship, and business economists showed no interest in the way businesses were born. Their goal was to prepare students for careers in large corporations and banks. Then they arrived Bill Gates is Steve Jobs and the students, dreaming of emulating them, asked for courses and seminars on entrepreneurship.
